


i can roll with the punches

by miss_universe



Series: Writer's Month 2019 [11]
Category: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms, A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Angst with a Happy Ending, F/M, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Implied/Referenced Torture, Military, Whump
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-11
Updated: 2019-08-11
Packaged: 2020-08-19 13:00:16
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,565
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20210155
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/miss_universe/pseuds/miss_universe
Summary: "You have a backbone made of Valyrian steel," Jaime whispered, and it meant more to her than any false words of beauty.Writer's Month 2019 Prompt: Day Eleven - Whump.





	i can roll with the punches

**Author's Note:**

> Prompt fill for Writer's Month 2019.  
Day eleven: Whump
> 
> fair warning: i know jack shit about the military, so i tried to be as vague as possible!!

Thing is, Brienne never thought she would have a happy ending. Those stories were for girls like Sansa Stark or Margaery Tyrell, whose beauty matched both inside and out. Even Cersei Lannister, as ugly as she is inside, would probably have a happy ending before her.   
  
She wasn’t like them. Of course, that was what she thought before.   
  
Brienne’s story really started when Brienne was five. She had a picture perfect family. She had a father and mother and an older brother and two younger sisters, and they lived on a beautiful island. The sun continued to shine brightly, the ocean kept glittering, and their house was filled with laughter and the smell of cookies baking in the oven.    
  
No one in her family except for her and her mother liked raw cookie dough, so Brienne’s favorite activity was baking with her mother, where they sat in the kitchen and watched the oven patiently, waiting for the cookies to be done. Her mother always put a small bowl of dough aside for them, and they would giggle as they ate. Galladon would come in and wrinkle his nose at their food, making Brienne stick her tongue out at him while their mother laughed. Then Brienne would chase him out of the kitchen, threatening to kiss his cheek with her sticky lips while their father held her sisters and told them to play outside because the babies were sleeping.   
  
Those sunny and bright days were gone when her mother got into a car crash on the way to take her sisters to a check up.   
  
Brienne and her brother got closer than ever in the aftermath, to the point where the people in town didn’t see one without the other. Their father, as much as he loved them, had his own issues dealing with their deaths and spent most of his time in his study, the door locked shut, the only evidence of him being there at all was the light spilling onto the carpet from the bottom of the door.    
  
They spent a year together, thick as thieves. Galladon couldn’t handle the silence inside the house, said it gave him the willies, so they went on adventures outside. There wasn’t a stone left unturned or a path not taken by the time Galladon was eight and Brienne was six. She was just going into her second year of kindergarten when tragedy struck the Tarths once again.    
  
Apparently Galladon had went on a school field trip to the lighthouse by the rocky cliffs overlooking the edge of the water. Brienne and Galladon jumped off those cliffs all the time when their family was whole. The teacher overheard one of her brother’s friends saying they didn’t believe him, but by then it was too late, and Galladon had jumped. What Brienne and Galladon didn’t know was that they only ever jumped off the cliffs when it was high-tide. He was alive even after hitting the rocks under the cliff, but died drowning before anyone could get down to help him.    
  
After that, it was only Brienne and her father. He didn’t blame her for Galladon’s death, instead he blamed the school, and promptly withdrew Brienne and enrolled her into homeschooling. He tried his best to teach her, but work interrupted him throughout the days, and eventually he hired a live-in tutor for her.    
  
The tutor’s name was Mrs. Roelle. She was an older woman with deep-set wrinkles on her face and a severe frown. Her eyes were dark and her nose was constantly turned up, as if smelling something awful. Her teeth were small and slightly yellowed, but she smiled so rarely that Brienne only ever saw them when the woman was yelling at her.   
  
And she yelled quite a bit.   
  
Mrs. Roelle was a nasty woman. If Brienne ever took too long to answer a question, her teacher would call her stupid. If she crossed her legs or spread them out, she would get a stern scolding that it was unladylike. Mrs. Roelle mocked her relentlessly when she wore anything other than skirts or dresses, to the point that Brienne couldn’t help but cry. If Brienne asked if she could go outside to play, the woman scoffed and called her too slow to have such privileges. 

  
  
When Brienne turned eleven, she had a massive growth spurt. Her shoulders became broad, her legs grew longer and thicker, and her adult teeth didn’t quite fit her jaw, making her teeth look similar to a horse’s. Mrs. Roelle would shake her head when Brienne asked for lunch or a snack, sternly replying that Brienne had no business trying to be bigger than she already was. That was also the first time Brienne was called ugly.    
  
“Well, it’s a good thing Selwyn still owns massive amounts of land,” Mrs. Roelle said with a frown as she looked her up and down. “Otherwise no man would want you.” Brienne had wrinkled her nose. “Why would I want a man?” She asked, and was sent to bed without supper for the impertinent question.    
  
Then when Brienne was thirteen, Mrs. Roelle deemed her ready to learn about sex-ed. “First, you’ll need to do it in the dark,” She had said with pinched lips. “No man will want to look at your face while he’s rutting on top of you. It will hurt. You will not feel pleasure, as is right, because a woman’s pleasure is taking care of her family. If you do feel pleasure, something must be wrong with how you were made.” She droned on, and that was when Brienne’s father furiously came into the room and fired her, for he had been listening through the door. He had suspicions of what caused Brienne’s sudden depressed attitude, and his suspicions were confirmed correct.    
  
“Darling,” He said, cupping her cheek, his hand so large it almost covered her entire face, “You know that isn’t true, right? None of what she told you was true.”    
  
But Mrs. Roelle had been spewing her hate and venom for years by then, and her favorite saying was men always lie. So Brienne didn’t believe him. 

  
  
Brienne turned fourteen with little fanfare. Her father got her a cellphone. She told him she liked it but didn’t need it, for who would she call? She was homeschooled and barely went into town. That was when her father told her she was going back to school, this time at the high school.   
  
Most of the students either ignored her or laughed at her when they made eye-contact, which was the best Brienne could hope for. She was technically the new kid, even if most of them remembered her brother. A few of the students, however, were kind, such as Renly and Gendry Baratheon. They became friends, and soon she developed a crush on Renly. That crush didn’t entirely go away until 11th grade, when Renly finally told her he was gay. She supported him of course, and if her heart was a bit bruised, it wasn’t as if he would’ve went for her even if she was straight.    
  
Then the dance finally rolled around. Ronnet Connington asked her to go, handing her a rose along with a smile in the hallway before walking home. She didn’t really know him, so she agreed. Then he threw the rose at her, laughing that she ever deluded herself into thinking that a man would ask her, Brienne the Beauty, out in public. “The only place you’re fit for is either a stable or a green pasture!” He jeered, their classmates cheering him on, filming with their phones   
  
Renly shouted at him amidst the laughter of their peers, but Gendry said nothing, just leaped at him and started throwing punches.    
  
Afterwards, when the fighting was done, Brienne asked him where he learned to punch like that. “You broke his nose on the first swing.” She said, mildly impressed. Gendry just shrugged, holding a bloody tissue up to his split lip. “Boot camp.”   
  


That night, Brienne went onto the internet and looked up how to enlist in the army.

* * *

Brienne was twenty-one when she met her squad. Their leader was a stern, apathetic man named Roose Bolton. Then there was Vargo Hoat, a wiry man with beady eyes, Hyle Hunt, their medic, Podrick Payne, who was far too young to be in actual combat, and Jaime Lannister, a crack shot who people called the Kingslayer. 

She wouldn’t have talked to any of them in different circumstances, but it was war, and Jaime, Pod and Hyle quickly became close. Hyle would flirt with her constantly, and it used to make her angry, but she realized that was just how he was. Pod followed her like a lost puppy, And Jaime…

Brienne and Jaime had a weird relationship. They were the closest out of all of them, but they veered between fierce friendship and fiery antagonism within a blink of an eye. Still, they were extremely loyal to one another, and knew each other's secrets. Jaime had whispered to her about Aerys and his sister, and in return, she told him about the abuse she had suffered through from childhood onward. Hyle teased them good-naturedly, saying the reason why they bickered so much was because they needed to fuck to get it out of their systems. They always told him to shut up, but neither of them denied it.

Their squad was never close with Bolton or the Goat, which was Vargo’s nickname. Something about them gave Brienne bad vibes, and the rest of the squad, even Jaime, followed her lead.

Her gut feeling turned out to be right, because one night she stumbled on them selling weapons to the enemy. She confronted them once she found out, and Bolton order the Goat to dispose of her. He hit her on the head with the butt of his gun, making her black out. 

When she woke up next, Pod was untying her ropes while Jaime was fighting the Goat and Hyle was aiming at Bolton. Pod said her name, making Jaime look at her for a split second. That second was enough time for Vargo to ram his knife into Jaime’s hand, making his scream as Hoat twisted the blade. By then, Brienne’s arms were untied, so she grabbed Pod’s gun and shot Vargo in the gut three times. Bolton had escaped.

When they got back to base, the doctors told them that Jaime would be sent back home, likely never to return. They had to amputate his hand because infection had set it.

Within a week it was confirmed, Jaime wasn’t coming back. Brienne had to be evaluated, but her evaluation said she was still fit to serve her country. She got a high promotion from out of the blue. She told Jaime about it, and he was quiet for a moment before barking out a dry laugh, telling her not to worry about it. She trusted him and picked her new squad, but she missed Jaime fiercely, and called him whenever she could, soaking in his voice over the phone and tracing the words on the letters he sent. She cherished them most of all, because she knew he had dyslexia and still went through the effort of writing her a whole page.

She served for another year and a half when she got captured. Her memories from that time blurred together, but by the time she was rescued, half of her cheek was missing, she had a broken arm, collarbone, ankle and cracked ribs. Pod told her later that she looked half-dead.

After that, she was given a medal for her service (which meant not breaking under interrogation) and shipped back home. They evaluated her team as well, and Pod was diagnosed with PTSD and sent him home as well. Jaime tried to get in touch with her multiple times, but she couldn’t talk to him, she felt too ashamed.

Brienne didn’t want to return to Tarth or see her father when she was so unstable mentally, so she looked at apartments in King’s Landing. She got a small studio apartment and then went job hunting, but couldn’t find anything. She served for four years, but that was her only job experience, and she had never been nice to look at, but now she had a large scar across her right cheek. No one wanted to see that everyday.

She was passing the VA, trying to gather the courage to go in. She still had nightmares and woke up screaming. She kept a knife under her pillow. When she was in large crowds she became paranoid and hyper-vigilant. She knew she needed help, but she was terrified to actually admit it. She always had to be strong on her own. 

Instead of going into the VA, Brienne decided to go into the cafe across the street. The smell of cookies hit her like a brick, making her think of her mother for the first time in years, and before she knew it she was crying, silent tears trailing down her cheeks.

The owner, a robust man who went by Hot Pie, asked her frantically what was wrong. Brienne, tired from her emotional walls crumbling, told him everything. He listened to her with sad eyes as she spoke, handing her tissues while she sniffled. Once she was done, he handed her a hot chocolate and told her that he was actually looking for someone to bake pastries for him, and if she wanted, she could bake something and consider it an interview. It twisted her up a bit to accept pity, but she agreed, and soon became their baker.

Three months after she accepted the job, Jaime came into the cafe. Brienne once again started crying as soon as she saw him, asking how he knew she was there. He admitted he went to his father to get the information, hugging her tightly to his chest. “I’ve got you, sweetheart.” He crooned in her ear as she rested her head in the crook of his neck.

Hot Pie let her go home early that day, and so Brienne took Jaime to her apartment, knowing he would have something to say about it. He did, of course, and that resulted in a week long argument where he tried to convince her to move in with him. She refused for the longest time until finally he shouted, “Don’t ask me to watch the woman I love live in a hovel!” 

Her disbelief was written across her face, so he asked her to give him a chance to prove it, and asked her on a date. She accepted. 

Then they went on another. And another. After the eighth date, she caved and moved into his apartment. After all, even with almost two years of being apart, they still had the same bond as before.

Six months later, he proposed. She said yes. 

On their wedding night, when she told him everything that she had been through after he became a civilian, Jaime whispered, "You have a backbone made of Valyrian steel," and it meant more to her than any false words of beauty.

Brienne’s happy ending didn’t involve a castle. It involved lots of therapy, bakeries and a handsome man who had a rough past. But it fit her, and she wouldn’t have traded it for anything.

**Author's Note:**

> leave a kudos/comment if you enjoyed!!


End file.
